dashes, parentheses, resourced lesson, extra activities

There are two useful resources here:
1. A carefully planned lesson about dashes, exploring how different types of extra information can be added to a sentence. This includes a detailed lesson plan and 3 activities (the final one is a team game, with clear differentiation). All resources are included. The lesson covers these Year 5/Year 6 objectives:

I understand the terms dash and parenthesis/parentheses
I can explain some uses for dashes
I can use dashes creatively for lots of different purposes

This is perfect for a demonstration lesson or an observed session. There is minimal ‘teacher talk’ and lots of active pupil engagement.

2. I have also included a further punctuation game: ‘Punctuation show-offs’.

I can use brackets, dashes (parentheses) and semi-colons in my sentences.

Would you like the writers in your class to be ‘punctuation show-offs’? Me too. I created this dice activity to encourage children to add extra information to sentences using parentheses (brackets and dashes) and also to separate closely related main clauses using semi-colons.
I have also provided teacher and – more importantly – child friendly explanations and examples of all concepts.
Children may incidentally find out about Usain Bolt, Picasso, Stephen Hawking and a 1000kg bowl of cereal. Have I caught your interest yet?
This whole activity has a ‘show-off’ theme and it’s fun. After playing this, you can remind your class to be ‘punctuation show-offs’ in their own writing.
Finally, I have added a ‘Victorian’ version of the same game, to show how it can be adapted to different themes.